Ana Cristina Carvalhaes is a founding member of Brazil’s Socialism and Liberty Party. In this interview with Green Left ’s Federico Fuentes , Carvalhaes argues for a non-dogmatic theory of imperialism that incorporates ecology.

Imperialism is a Marxist concept, though the word is commonly used in the media and by non-Marxist scholars.

The answer to your questions depends on the Marxist perspective you analyse it from, as there are various forms of Marxism. I subscribe to one that rejects immutable dogmas, untouchable classics and sanctified gurus.

Such ahistorical views contradict the essence of Marxist historical materialism.

Imperialism remains extremely valid and useful today, even if it has been enriched by reality and new phenomena in the 110 years since Lenin ’ s seminal pamphlet on the topic .

I am among those who defend and draw upon the concept of imperialism, formulated and debated by a great generation of Marxists at the turn of the 20th century.

But I also think we must draw on the history of these past 100-plus years, and on important contributions regarding new phenomena in the global economy and geopolitics, especially by activists and theorists from the so-called Global South.

What elements of Lenin’s pamphlet have been superseded by subsequent developments?

The merit of Lenin’s synthesis lies, above all, in that it revealed an extraordinary long-term strategic vision.

As a revolutionary, Lenin was concerned about the war, which had already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in Europe when the pamphlet was written in 1916, and how socialists on both sides of the trenches should respond.

Most of what he described as imperialism remains relevant today:

• the systemic predominance of an alliance between banking capital and industrial capital — finance capital;

• the growing tendency towards capital’s concentration through the formation of monopolies or oligopolies — the end of free competition;

• the ever-widening development gap between core and non-core countries;

• the tendency of industrialised nations, driven by capital’s needs, to expand their political, military and economic power over others; and

• rivalry among imperialist powers and the tendency toward war.

Each characteristic aptly describes today’s crises — with the notable exception of the ecological and climate crisis.

Broadly speaking, the Marxist theory of imperialism has proven correct in the long run, though, of course, not without shortcomings.

The Marxist theory of imperialism, further developed by Latin American dependency theorists and anti-colonial thinkers from Africa and Asia, rightly emphasises the core-periphery contradiction.

But it took a long time to recognise the emergence of intermediate state-economies. These state-economies are dependent on core imperialist powers, but oppress neighbours and partners at the regional level.

They do not quite qualify as part of the core, but are no longer simply periphery. Brazil is one case. This group is highly heterogeneous due to historic, social and demographic differences, among others.

Second, but no less important, is that no attention was paid to industrial capitalism’s predatory impacts on nature. In fact, nature did not appear in the writings of these thinkers.

They failed, for example, to elaborate on the link between imperialism and inequalities in terms of the far greater environmental destruction inflicted on the colonised.

How important is the integration of the environmental crisis into our understanding of imperialism?

This belated incorporation is, in my view, the most important contribution to Marxist theory since the 1970s.

There is an expanding body of work on the subject, one that has grown in line with the rising number of ecological disasters, increasing awareness among broad sections of society, and mounting evidence of the climate and biodiversity crises we face.

The main Marxist and Marxist-influenced theorists contributing to this ongoing discussion include Michael Löwy, Ian Angus, James O’Connor, Daniel Bensaïd, John Bellamy Foster, Jason Moore, Ariel Salleh, Andreas Malm, Maristella Svampa and Kohei Saito.

Anti-capitalists, such as Naomi Klein, have been crucial to popularising the issue.

The incorporation of ecology by Marxist theorists and social movements was — and remains — essential, as combating capitalism is a matter of human survival.

This system destroys nature. If the capitalist system — which gave rise to …